“Why hadn’t he realized this before? Everyone knew that if you divided realityby expectation, you got a happiness quotient. But when you inverted the equation-expectationdivided by reality-you didn’t get the opposite of happiness. What you got, Lewis realized, was hope.Pure logic: Assuming reality was constant, expectation had to be greater than reality to createoptimism. On the other hand, a pessimist was someone with expectations lower than reality, afraction of diminishing returns. The human condition meant that this number approached zerowithout reaching it-you never really completely gave up hope; it might come flooding back at anyprovocation.”

Jodi Picoult

Jodi Picoult - “Why hadn’t he realized this before...” 1

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